Key Insight: Although ?[t]he rules do not require a party to produce ESI in the form most helpful to the opposing party[,]? the court ordered Defendant to produce additional discovery in TIFF format and to produce the metadata for all documents already produced (in PDF format)
Nature of Case: Class action
Electronic Data Involved: ESI (.xls, proprietary format)
Key Insight: Where trial court in personal injury case ordered production of all photos of plaintiff privately posted on Facebook prior to the accident that plaintiff intended to introduce at trial, all photos of plaintiff privately posted after the accident not involving nudity or ?romantic encounters? and authorizations for defendant to obtain records showing each time plaintiff posted a private message after the accident and the number of words in each post, the appellate court vacated those portions of the order directing production of post-accident photos not intended to be introduced at trial and authorizations related to the private messages
Nature of Case: Personal injury
Electronic Data Involved: Social media contents, Facebook
Key Insight: Cost of converting native email and other native files into imaged format for purposes of production was one of many items considered by the court in defendant?s application for costs following grant of summary judgment. Despite plaintiffs argument that the requested expenses should only be approved if they pertain to documents actually produced to Plaintiff, court was satisfied with defendant?s explanation that the costs were ?actually and necessarily incurred in responding to the Plaintiff?s discovery demands? and allowed recovery of defendant?s tiffing costs, even though Defendant could not ?state with certainty whether every document that was converted was actually turned over to Plaintiff as being responsive to a particular demand.?
Nature of Case: Breach of contract
Electronic Data Involved: Imaged native files
Key Insight: Inadvertently produced ESI
Nature of Case: Product Liability
Key Insight: For defendant?s intentional deletion of emails using cleaning software and misrepresentations intended to cover up the same as well as defendant?s failure to produce documents over which he was found to maintain control and misrepresentations related to the same, the magistrate judge recommended a permissive adverse inference and that defendant and counsel, who ?exacerbated? the effects of defendant?s misconduct through incomplete or misleading representations to the court, be jointly and severally liable for plaintiff?s attorneys fees and costs incurred in bringing the motion for sanctions; district court rejected objections to the recommendations and adopted them in full
Electronic Data Involved: Emails, ESI
Key Insight: Reasoning that ?[t]he inquiry about what electronic processes are taxable turns on whether they are part of making copies ?necessarily obtained for use in the case? or instead are solely for the convenience of counsel? the court indicated that it would award costs for load file preparation, but not for processing data
Electronic Data Involved: Taxable Costs
Key Insight: Finding plaintiff responsible for his prior counsel?s deficient Facebook production, saying he ?voluntarily chose his prior counsel and cannot avoid the consequences for his attorney?s discovery failures? and also responsible for his current counsel?s deficient Twitter production, district court granted Motion for Sanctions filed by defendants in part and ordered plaintiff to produce the entirety of his Twitter profile with redactions for privilege and relevance and to produce a log for any social networking information withheld and to pay the reasonable expenses and attorney?s fees associate with the discovery dispute.
Nature of Case: Civil Rights
Electronic Data Involved: Social media postings
Key Insight: For Defendants? discovery violations, including failure to adequately search for responsive evidence, failure to designate a 30(b)(6) representative for deposition, and admitted deletion of emails despite a duty to preserve, the court found that sanctions were warranted and imposed serious sanctions, including monetary sanctions, exclusion of evidence, and ?enforcing the judgement of the Taiwanese court? against Defendant, where Defendant?s litigation misbehavior may have rendered Plaintiff unable to prove its contractual claim in court
Nature of Case: Breach of contract
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, email
Key Insight: Court denied Motion to Compel Production of Electronically Stored Data where plaintiff said that 1500 printed pages of defendant?s database usage history were inadequate under FRCP 34(e)(ii) because they were not easily searchable. Plaintiff sought to compel production of the electronic version of the data to include metadata, but the court said that the printed information was not as cumbersome as the plaintiff suggested because only a limited time period contained within the pages was relevant; the data did not originate from the defendant, so the defendant did not have the ability to manipulate the data to provide it only for the limited time period; and the plaintiff was unable to identify any information contained in the electronic version of the data that was not also contained in the printed pages.
Nature of Case: Privacy Rights
Electronic Data Involved: Database
Key Insight: Appellate court found no abuse of discretion for award of conversion and character recognition costs where Defendant attested that the costs were necessarily incurred and did not request all costs related to electronic discovery and where the objecting party failed to itemize which costs it claimed were not permissible or provide an explanation of why they were not covered by the statute
Nature of Case: Qui tam; FCA (costs pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1920 (4))
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
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